Children of Immortality!
There is a living, unchanging, eternal Consciousness that underlies all names and forms. That is God or Brahman.
God is the end of all actions. He is the end of all Sadhanas, Yoga practices. Seek Him. Realise Him. Only then can you be free and perfect. Look upon the world as a mirage. Lead a life of selfless service, renunciation, dispassion, prayer and meditation. You will soon attain God-realisation.
May God bless you. Om Tat Sat.
Continue reading →Vedanta is the culmination of the Vedas. It is entering into the study of Brahman. It is the science which raises man above the plane of worldliness. It is the rational method of meditating on the Supreme Absolute, the Eternal, the Infinite. Vedanta is the culmination of human experience and is the end of the faculty of thinking. It is the greatest and the highest knowledge. This wisdom was revealed to the ancient sages.
The Rishis and sages of yore have made experiments and researches in meditation and given to the world their spiritual experiences. These are all authoritative. You must not spend much time in making the preliminary experiments once more. Your whole life-time is not sufficient for making these experiments and researches. The experiences of sages are like ready-made compressed tablets. You will have to simply follow their instructions implicitly with perfect, unswerving faith and devotion. Then alone can you make any progress in the spiritual path and attain the goal of life.
In order to practise Sadhana for the attainment of absolute freedom, you should know in the beginning itself its technique and method. You should know the nature of bondage, the cause of bondage and the way of getting rid of bondage. You have to make a searching study of life and know its mysteries.
Continue reading →I have come here to remind you that the goal of life, the be-all or the summum bonum of existence, is Self-realisation or attainment of God-consciousness. I have come here not to teach you, but to stir or awaken you all in the path of spirituality. You have forgotten your real Svarupa on account of the force of Avidya, Maya, Moha and Raga. You are tossed about hither and thither and caught up in the Samsaric wheel of birth and death on account of your egoism, Vasanas, Trishnas and passions of various kinds. I have come here to remind you that the real happiness is within and not without. I have come to remind you that in essence you are the all-pervading, pure Consciousness and you are not the perishable body composed of the five elements. I have come to remind you of the great Mahavakya of the Upanishads, Tat Tvam Asi, which connotes the identity of the Jivatman with the Paramatman, the individual soul with the Supreme Soul.
Continue reading →H.H. Sri Swami Sivanandaji Maharaj is renowned, not only for the versatile and prolific output of literature on spiritual topics, but also because of his lucid, succinct and direct way of presenting them. In countless hearts he has kindled the light of spiritual aspiration; in numerous minds he has effected the dawn of divine illumination. He has done so, among other means, through his never-ceasing flow of publications.
Thus Awakens Swami Sivananda is a pocket-treasure, every sentence of which charges the reader with a wave of spiritual exhilaration, giving him a flash of divine awakening, however momentary it might be. Constant study of this booklet, meditation on the truths embodied in it and flowering them in one’s practical life, will surely make one a divine being on earth.
Continue reading →The value of this great little work is evident even from a mere reading of its table of contents. It is a book of perennial interest and many-sided usefulness for self-culture, self-knowledge, acquisition of the power of personality and success in life.
It is a work that edifies, imparts illumination to the intelligence, and empowers human will for good and for achievement of greatness. Students, grown-up persons, doctors, lawyers, businessmen, seekers after Truth and lovers of God–all are bound to find in the pages of this publication plenty of specific guidance for thought-culture and thought power and for living a positive, dynamic, rich, triumphant and joyous life.
Continue reading →Spiritual aspirants have always loved to study the lives of saints, which are living scriptures, as it were, throwing a flood of light on the spiritual path for the aspirants to walk boldly, fearlessly and joyously, to the goal of immortality. These short biographies from the pen of a great living saint and Yogi, have the added advantage of the best possible presentation.
This celestial scripture, the enthralling story of the Sixty-three Nayanars, the towering spiritual giants of South India, is destined to bring about a spiritual renaissance, nay, a revolution throughout the world. It is a book to jolt you out of your spiritual lethargy, a book to shake you out of your spiritual slumber, a book to heal your chronic spiritual blindness.
Continue reading →The life of man in this sense-universe is a life of temptation. Man is born for Self-realisation. He is born for leading a religious life. But he is led astray by the temptations of his environments. He is spoiled by society. He has not got the strength of will to resist the temptations.
A Deputy Commissioner said: “O Swamiji, the world wants bread. I want bread. I care a two pence for the soul. Who wants the soul in these days? Nobody cares for spiritual matters.” I replied him: “You cannot live on bread alone, but you can live on OM, the symbol of Brahman. The mind wants mental food. The soul wants spiritual food.”
The desire to attain knowledge of the Self will dawn in these proud, egoistic people only when they meet some adversities, calamities, troubles and disappointments. The desire to attain the knowledge of the Self dawns in a person who is free from desires for sense-objects. Such a man, with a pure mind alone, is competent to tread the spiritual path.
Continue reading →Beloved of God!
Salutations. Heartiest greetings for a spiritually Glorious, prosperous, happy New Year.
To you, who are leading the Divine Life, the New Year brings a really new year, something very different from the old year! It marks another milestone on the road to God. Feel, realise that on this New Year’s Day you have had a rebirth into the Divine.
You are the Beloved of God. For, you love God. This Love of God is the fruit of many, many lives of Tapasya that you have lived. Kindly guard it zealously through Japa, Kirtan, Swadhyaya, Dhyana, Charity, and Introspection.
The Lord is ever with you. He is everywhere. He surrounds you and fills your being. See God and God alone in all faces. Feel that He is the Indweller of all beings. Love all. Serve all. Then, He, through everyone, will make you happy.
May Lord bless you and your family with health, long life, prosperity and devotion.
Thy own Self,
Swami Sivananda
Continue reading →Though Sri Swami Sivanandaji Maharaj is an Advaita Vedantin of Sri Sankara’s School, he is unique in that in his life and teachings he synthesises the highest idealism and dynamic practical life. His “Divine Life” is ideal life, ideal and divine only because it is possible to live it here and now.
The sage, therefore, has directed the beam of his divine light on all problems that face man. Not confining himself to the exposition of philosophy and Yoga, he has enriched our literature in other fields, too, e.g., medicine, health and hygiene and even “How to Become Rich.”
And now we have from his divine pen his inspiring and enlightened thoughts on one of the most interesting phenomena viz., dreams. He has viewed dreams from several angles and thrown such a flood of light on it as to expose not only its unreality, but also the unreality of the waking state. Thus the sage leads us to the Supreme Reality that alone exists.
Continue reading →Truth is simple. Simple are the words of God-realised saint. How simply our Gurudev,Sri Swami Sivanandaji Maharaj, states the subtlest of spiritual truths, so that evenlaymen can understand! The Sage’s compassion is such that he wants the truths of thescriptures to be made available to all, to whatever intellectual level they may belong.Therefore, he has literally exhausted all the methods of stating the truth. He has writtencommentaries on ancient texts; he has presented learned theses on metaphysical questions;he has narrated them in the form of interesting stories; he has given laconic expressionto them in aphorisms; he has vividly dramatised them in his plays; he has sung them insongs and woven them into sublime poems; and now comes another potent method ofinstruction-the Parable. The story is interesting; the mind readily grasps it. Thespiritual truth which is the other side of the story automatically gets inerasably lodgedin the mind. The truth becomes not only clear, but indelible.
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